1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device for the parallel-serial conversion of several signal parameters each detected by a detector.
2. Discussion of the Background
In measuring instruments and systems, especially in spectrum analyzers and network-analyzers, several signal parameters of an electrical or communications signal are generally detected by means of detectors and evaluated in a subsequent processing stage. The signal parameters of the signal can be, for example, the amplitude or the phase of the signal. Evaluation parameters, for example, the maximum value, the minimum value, the average value, the root mean squared values etc. are determined from the sampled values of the signal parameters in a subsequent processing stage.
Since the individual signal parameters and evaluation parameters are detected and processed in different measuring channels, in which functional units, for example, filter stages, with different group-delay times, are realized, these signal parameters and evaluation parameters provide different data delay times and are not synchronized with one another.
A device and a method for balancing the different data delay times of several data occurring in a quasi-parallel manner are already known from DE 199 61 131 A1. The individual, mutually-non-synchronized input signals are synchronized via a synchronization unit, stored in a buffer memory—RAM—and output as serial output signals in a mutually-synchronized manner. In this context, the synchronization unit consists of a variable shift register, into which the respective input signal is read in a serial manner, and a state machine, which controls the throughput time of the input signal through the respective shift register dependent upon the previous data delay time of the input signal. In order to guarantee the synchronization of the individual input signals with one another, the state machines associated with the individual shift registers are referenced with one another by means of a common synchronization signal.
This time referencing of the individual state machines and the associated variable shift register by means of a common synchronization signal with a given clock-pulse rate restricts the synchronization of the individual input signals to signals with an identical data rate. A device of this kind and a method of this kind according to the prior art cannot be used for applications in measurement technology, because the detection and signal processing of the individual signal parameters of the signal to be measured in measuring instruments and systems can be parameterized at different data rates by the user.